1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a system for awarding prizes to members of an incentive program, such as a casino slot club, and more particularly, to a system for utilizing the membership card for such an incentive program as a prepaid phone calling card to award and redeem points to a member in the form of prepaid time for a telecommunications service.
2. Background of the Invention
Slot machines, such as video poker, reel machines, video keno or video blackjack devices (hereinafter, collectively referred to as xe2x80x9cslot machinesxe2x80x9d), are an important source of income for the gaming industry. Despite the fact that the odds generally favor the casino, players still play slot machines in large numbers, in hopes of hitting a large jackpot, as well as for their entertainment value.
Each slot machine is designed to ensure that, on average, the casino retains a predetermined percentage of the total amount gambled (the house advantage or xe2x80x9cvigorishxe2x80x9d). In fact, slot machines generally have a higher house advantage than the table games of blackjack, poker or craps. Thus, the more these slot machines are played, the greater the revenue to the casino.
Accordingly, casinos constantly search for marketing strategies and programs to appeal to players and to distinguish their slot machines from competitors in the industry. For example, as an added incentive to play their slot machines, many casinos offer xe2x80x9cslot clubxe2x80x9d programs to reward slot machine players. Each player in a slot club is generally issued a player tracking card encoded with the players"" tracking identifier. The casino awards xe2x80x9cplayer reward pointsxe2x80x9d for the player as he plays slot machines in that casino. The xe2x80x9cplayer reward pointsxe2x80x9d can generally be redeemed for merchandise or services at the casino hotel.
In many cases, however, the incentive provided by conventional slot club programs may not be sufficient to attract new players or to retain existing casino players at slot machines. With conventional slot club programs, for example, the player reward points must typically be exchanged for merchandise and services at the casino hotel. Thus, once the player has left the casino, the player has limited options for redeeming the points in a convenient manner.
In addition, although it would be desirable for casinos to give a small, immediate and affordable reward to a player for his continued play, conventional slot machines can only pay out an integral numbers of coins. Thus, a small reward of a fractional amount of less than one coin is impractical with conventional systems. If a casino could cost-effectively provide an award to players every time the player pulls the handle, the slot machine may be advantageously promoted as providing a xe2x80x9cwin for every spin.xe2x80x9d
It is well known for vendors to sell prepaid calling cards for telephone calls at a fixed or standard rate. Such prepaid calling cards may allow, for example, the caller to call anywhere in the United States at any time of the day for a rate of 16 cents per minute, with a correspondingly higher rate charged for international calls. In addition, xe2x80x9crechargeablexe2x80x9d prepaid calling cards are known which may be recharged by purchasing additional time, generally in blocks of minutes. Since the prepaid calling card is merely a pointer to an account maintained by the vendor, the card itself is not necessarily required to make a telephone call. There are no known prepaid calling cards, however, which allow minutes to be accumulated as an incentive award for the use of a particular service.
One casino slot card club offers a separate xe2x80x9cgiveawayxe2x80x9d prepaid calling card, having a predefined value, as an incentive to join the club. However, this additional card simply acts as a standard prepaid calling card, and does not function as a slot card. Once the prepaid calling time is used up, the prepaid calling card cannot be refreshed by slot usage. Moreover, none of the known slot cards permit the accumulated bonus points to be redeemed for free phone time.
Generally, to overcome the above-described problems, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for awarding and redeeming telephone time to a member of an incentive award program, such as a slot club. In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a user identifier that identifies a user of at least one slot machine is determined, the usage of the at least one slot machine by the user is determined, an award of telephone time based on the usage of the at least one slot machine is determined, and the award of telephone time is stored in association with the user identifier. In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention a request to establish a telephone call is received, wherein the request includes an identifier that identifies a user and a telephone number to be called; the telephone call is established, based on the telephone number; and an amount of telephone time associated with the user identifier is adjusted based on a cost of the telephone call, wherein the telephone time was awarded for usage of at least one slot machine.